Around 140,000 tonnes of imported raw sugar is held up at Russia's Black Sea port of Novorossiisk because of bad weather and a lack of rail wagons needed to transport the sugar inland, a port official said.
"There are about five ships now at the port, carrying around 140,000 tonnes of raw sugar," said the official. "There are some problems with the railways--we cannot unload at full capacity, because there are not enough wagons." He said it would take around a month to free up the bottleneck. Traders said they expected Russian imports of raw sugar to rise sharply over the next two months, partly because material held up port would start to arrive at Russian refineries.